


Heritage

by narsus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft on the topic of tradition, expectation and his own place in the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heritage

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat, and obviously in the genesis of it all, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Mycroft keeps two residences in London. One for convenience, the other as an actual home. Of the two, his Pall Mall apartment is actually the family property, rather than the house in Highgate. Before it was his apartment, it was his mother’s, and before her it was the residence of the previously ranking member of the generation above her. Rank of course being determined by their own family criteria. Mycroft is the ranking member of his generation because he holds the highest political position, a coveted and invisible position, within the structure of the British state. He is in fact not quite where his mother was when she occupied those rooms. He’s not far off and of course it will come with time, but he’s aware that he’d better get a move on if he doesn’t want to lose the apartment to an up and coming cousin who’s just passed the Civil Service entry exams. Granted, his mother still occasionally works on a consulting basis for the state, so, by a technicality, he could still conceivably keep the apartment, if she were to require it for work purposes, but that’s not particularly likely.

It’s a matter of pride that the family branch that has held that great and glorious position retains it long into the future. Mycroft will not have any daughters to pass the position on to, but he suspects that there may be a young cousin or two, perhaps even on his father’s side, who could one day accomplish the role. _That_ would irritate his extended family. To see a Reigate daughter in the, practically ancestral, Holmes position of section chief and perhaps even higher. Then again, there were already mutterings of discontent when Commander Reigate became Commander Holmes instead. How dare he aspire to, and _achieve_ , marriage to the ranking member of that generation! Didn’t he know that she was, in all things, his superior, destined for greater things than his mere, expendable, self could imagine? Mycroft’s heard his father do enough, rather shockingly convincing, impressions of various extended family to know exactly what they said, and kept saying for at least two decades.

Interestingly, despite the objection to a special operative marrying the woman who, only a few years later, would become head of the service, there seem to be some strange priorities at work. Mycroft, like his mother, isn’t expected to marry, unless he can find someone worthy of him. If he does, then he’s certain to be subjected to the same accusation of marrying beneath his station no matter who he picks. Sherlock on the other hand has generally been ignored and thus allowed to do as he pleases. One produces an heir and a spare, and with the heir hale and hearty, the spare is generally just there as insurance. Yet oddly, family members who really would have dismissed Sherlock has poor insurance against the possibility of Mycroft’s untimely, but nevertheless heroic, demise, should duty call for it, have recently started taking an interest. Being members of the Holmes family this has meant making enquires about his situation rather than actually talking to him, and at least one, usually objectionable, uncle and been making distinct noises about getting Sherlock to marry John.

It’s obvious why but still, Mycroft doesn’t quite understand it. Why _is_ a retired Army Major a better choice than a Naval Commander for marriage into the family? On a rational level it makes little sense, on an emotive one, it’s probably because the family is traditional Army stock, though, quite possibly, Air Force might be equally acceptable. Or perhaps not. Mycroft has a cousin after all, who retired from an Air Force position to become a civilian pilot for some airline, and there are still family members who’ve never forgiven him for it. It just about passed muster because the poor man didn’t carry the Holmes family name, being from a cadet branch of the family instead. The Holmes family are a fussy lot, after all. John is acceptable for being a former Army officer, Gregory is acceptable for being a Lestrade and, though it’s not polite to mention it, named after a distinctive Holmes ancestor’s lover, Mycroft the Fourth’s in fact. Anthea isn’t quite acceptable in the social sense but, unlike Mycroft’s father, she knows that her place is to protect and serve the heir to the Holmes legacy, not try to marry him. A trait which may, in fact, mean that she’ll one day be deemed a good match for a younger, less prestigious relative.

Mycroft has no intention of marrying anyone anyway, the notion simply doesn’t interest him, but, as he has already told her, he is quite prepared to walk Anthea down the aisle or stand in as an emergency husband should that ever be required. Not that she has any interest in marriage either. That being one of the many reasons why they get along so well. They do spend time together socially but there’s no underlying thread of anything else to it. She likes to watch action films where she’ll critique the fight scenes, Mycroft likes to watch historical adaptations where he’ll point out all the inaccuracies. Mycroft will drink his weak scotch on those evenings while Anthea drinks her gin straight up, and the following morning he’ll watch in fascination as she carefully prepares her morning tea. Theirs is a companionable situation, which is just the way it ought to be, though Mycroft is well aware that those without the sense to observe, might think it something more. After all, convention would suggest that one ought to marry a woman who laughed at your jokes about cultivating your belly into a little shelf on which to rest your teacup and saucer.

Sherlock, Mycroft supposes, may or may not marry in the end. Not that it will depend on anything particularly dramatic. In fact, it will more likely depend on John. If John is content as things stand, then it will go no further and they might remain flatmates indefinitely, with no sexual contact between them in the slightest. On the other hand, if John realises the potential that stands between them, then, Mycroft predicts, they will, eventually, be married. Sherlock will settle for nothing less because despite his apparent lack of convention, in certain aspects, Sherlock can easily be more conservative that Mycroft. Sherlock would, at the end of the day, require a monogamous marriage for the sake of his security and happiness. In the same way that he requires expensive clothing, Mycroft to do his accounts and things like the Tory party or foie gras to continue to exist. Should the happy event occur, Sherlock will most likely require another residence simply for the sake of convention too. That will at least spare Mycroft from tying to decide upon a suitable wedding present. An apartment in Maida Vale should suit all purposes, still permitting a central location while indulging Sherlock’s need for luxury, just enough to prompt delight, rather than annoyance at Mycroft making such decisions for him.

Mycroft himself will not be relocating until the day that he gracefully cedes his position to a younger relative. After which time, he’ll retire to his house in Highgate, though, by that point, he may really be looking to leave London all together, and return to the family home in Surrey instead. When that day comes and he leaves London forever, what becomes of his property will depend entirely on Anthea. He will leave the house to her as a first choice of course, but, should she not require it, he’s quite fond of the idea of leaving it, in perpetuity, as an extra residence for the ranking member of each generation. Sherlock will not need it after all. Mycroft has seen to it that there are investments enough to support his brother long after Mycroft himself is gone. Of course it doesn’t do any harm either than Sherlock, in turn, is bound to leave a decent sum to the service of medical science, though he’s just as likely to indulge in leaving behind a piano scholarship or two, in memory of his brother, and, quite possibly, a sizable amount to the Tory party as well.

For all the familial politicking that he’s engaged in, Mycroft likes to think of himself as a fairly placid man, given to making sensible decisions. He’s lucky not to have inherited his mother’s depression, something which Sherlock has a distinct touch of as well, nor his father’s sheer excitement at danger, something else of which Sherlock has been granted a fair portion. The lack of extremes is beneficial. His mother controls her black moods with medication these days and Sherlock has just recently been prescribed suitable anti-depressants as well. His father got shot in the line of duty which seems to have calmed him down considerably, though Mycroft does recall hearing hushed talk of a dinner, where someone had drawn a weapon on his mother, prompting his recently disabled father, who could no longer walk unassisted, to throw himself across the table to wrestle the thing from the would-be assassin’s hands. It’s enough to make Mycroft wonder about the genetics behind it all. It is Sherlock after all, who has inherited their mother’s illness as well as her biting sarcasm, along with their father’s exhilaration at danger and his sense of duty towards those he would protect.

Of course, Mycroft has been told that he looks like his parents, that he sounds like his mother, that he’s as ruthless as his father ever was in action. He’s even seen service too, in a branch of the Army of course, albeit a branch that has ‘air service’ in the title. It had been his duty after all, a duty that always required a calm assessment of the situation and a willingness to do what needed to be done. Granted, his parents had both employed the same rationale in their own positions at the time, but somehow it had always seemed more grandiose and heroic when it had been them instead. Mycroft hadn’t done much other than putter around Hereford, keep up with his training and occasionally be dispatched overseas. Though it does at least amuse him that it’s only recently that Sherlock’s figured out that Mycroft can’t have been in the Diplomatic Service all that time, because they most certainly weren’t based out of Hereford. Mycroft isn’t particularly interested in excitement anyway, which might be why he’s always been a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune. The world could do with some decent human computers after all: it’s the sort of thing that would likely speed the progress of society, and, if those human machines enjoyed a nice cup of tea in the evenings, a contented cohabitation with a former British Army officer or a penchant for blasting game fowl out of the skies, then how could that do any harm? Other than to the game birds that his mother decided to drop from the skies, of course.


End file.
